a. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to unit tile, which is especially suitable for decoration and protection of interior walls of a bathroom, kitchen, toilet, washroom or living room, or surfaces of furniture etc.
b. Prior Art
Heretofore, walls of a room, in which water is used, such as a bathroom, kitchen, toilet, washroom, etc. are generally covered or decorated by brick or ceramic wall tile such as mosaic tile etc. Recently, tile of synthetic resins, similar in sizes and configurations to the conventional brick or ceramic tile, have been frequently used in place of the brick or the ceramic tile.
On the other hand, decorative sheet made of paper, cloth or synthetic resin sheet having ornamental patterns printed or embossed thereon has been widely used for covering and protecting walls of a room such as a living room etc., or providing ornamental effect on the walls.
Furthermore, overlaid plywood, which is formed of paper or cloth impregnated with synthetic resins, has been used to cover surfaces of furniture etc. for the purposes of protection and decoration of the surfaces.
The ceramic wall tile as described above are usually prepared by a complicated process, which includes molding of raw materials such as kaolin or plastic clay into a shape of tile, drying and grazing the molded material and calcining the same. Moreover, the setting or installation of the tile requires troublesome operations such as placing a number of ceramic wall tile pieces on a setting bed, regularly, one by one, and thereafter finishing joints between the tile pieces.
The synthetic resin tile are also similar to the ceramic wall tile. Although the synthetic resin tile are advantageously hardwearing and can be colorful as compared with the ceramic wall tile, the setting of the synthetic resin tile is again troublesome, which comprises preliminary application of an adhesive on the surface of the setting wall or on the rear side of the synthetic resin tile and setting each piece of the synthetic resin tile on the setting wall.
Thus, the setting operation of the synthetic resin tile is as troublesome as that of the ceramic tile and it can be attained only by a time-consuming work by a skilled person. This results in high cost for tile setting and requires much time.
Moreover, the conventional tile brick have another disadvantage due to the fact that they are fixed in sizes, shapes and thicknesses, to wit, they have uniform sizes, shapes and thicknesses. More particularly, if there is some obstacle such as a faucet on a wall, to which the tile or brick are to be applied, the tile or brick should be cut out so as to avoid such an obstacle. This processing operation is quite difficult for a nonprofessional.
As to the decorative sheet, a variety of kinds of sheets are easily available in the market and they can be applied to walls or surfaces of furniture with relative ease on a do-it-yourself basis. However, the sheets are so thin that they can not protect the surfaces of the walls or furniture and can not provide a finish of voluminous appearance and feeling.